ABOUT PORTFOIL

The good reputation of extra virgin olive oil has been increasing worldwide. During the past fifty years, its production and consumption have grown and spread exponentially, in part thanks to the trail left by important scientific discoveries that have confirmed its nutritional and healthy properties as an important part of a well balanced diet.

Even the interest and curiosity of consumers towards new kinds of extra virgin continues to increase. Yet, for a small olive farm, leaving aside anonymity and reaching out to the global market is far from easy, since it requires funds and skills that are often not available to them.

Finding special oils made by small farms, selecting them and purchasing them directly are complicated and expensive operations for importers distributors and consumers abroad and often represent a real obstacle.

Portfoil is intended to provide international operators and consumers with information on high quality Italian extra virgin olive oils, including a selection of and information about Italian olive farms.

The selection of the firms

The initiative was proposed to a vast number of Italian olive producers, which were selected based on their compliance with the minimum requirements to meet the needs of importers abroad.

Producers were sent a detailed questionnaire, so as to obtain the necessary preliminary information needed to select the target producers to be included in the catalogue together with specific information on their extra virgin olive oils, included in a presentation sheet.

Natural antioxidant content

Producers were asked to pick one high quality extra virgin olive oil from their product portfolio to be marketed internationally. All the oils included were appraised by Unaprol's tasting panel so as to define their sensory profile, and underwent additional physical-chemical analyses in order to measure their level of natural antioxidants.

The indicator, divided into three different classes, synthesizes the information regarding the antioxidants level. The chemical-physical and sensory analyses were intentionally performed during an intermediate stage of product life, so as to appraise it in a condition that would be similar to its usual consumption conditions.

About this site

This site is made up of a first part dedicated to extra virgin olive oil in general, which describes the national olive growing heritage, production techniques, extraction technologies and the main quality and nutritional properties of extra virgins, so as to provide a brief introduction to the product and its most important qualities.

An other part is dedicated to the oils selected, arranged in three categories of fruitiness according to their sensory profile: intense, medium and light.

Each product sheet gives, next to the farm's general information, a brief presentation complemented by a photograph of the producers and their bottle.

Specific product information includes quantities available, a description of the sensory profile and its recommended gastronomic uses, natural antioxidants content (all the oils in the catalogue were tested by the laboratory of the University of Perugia), as well as information regarding the varieties that make up the olive groves, production techniques, foreign markets where the products are currently being marketed and any main awards and achievements.

This web site will be updated at each new campaign, to include new extra virgin olive oils as well as new organoleptic profiles, and also including new selected farms.

Unaprol'straceability system

Traceability provides consumers with a series of precise data regarding the origin of the product and how to make the most of it, thus satisfying certain requirements that are becoming ever more important at the time of making a purchase decision.

In fact, with Unaprol's traceability project, by simply punching in a code found on extra virgin olive oil bottles from participating farms, either by SMS or through the internet, consumers can find out the place of origin of the olives, the farms involved, the olive varieties, the oil mill where they were processed, the organoleptic and sensory properties of a specific extra virgin and suggested enogastronomic uses.

Our members are very conscious of the specific commitments by olive farmers and millers to comply with specific regulations for producing, harvesting, processing, storing and bottling, as established in Unaprol's program. Today, over 300 olive oil production chains represent almost 6000 farms, which have obtained the traceability certificate by a third party certification body.